


"Barnes. James Barnes. I'm like 007 but better.”

by FeralCreed



Category: Captain America (Movies), MCU, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky can be nice, Clintasha - Freeform, James Bond References, M/M, OFC - Freeform, Steve doesn't know what he's up to, Stucky - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 06:54:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5487830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeralCreed/pseuds/FeralCreed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by a prompt from tumblr user definitivly. "I had this idea after CATWS where Steve and Bucky find each other and live together. So Bucky goes to the gym everyday and he sees this girl gets beat up during sparring and he sees her outside crying and stars training her because she reminds him of preserum Steve. And Steve doesn't know what he is doing/where he is going so he follows Bucky one day and finds him training the girl and he gets all choked up."</p>
            </blockquote>





	"Barnes. James Barnes. I'm like 007 but better.”

“Steve, you ready yet?” Bucky yelled from the kitchen. “Hurry up, I've been waiting for a hundred years out here.”

 

“Hardly,” Steve grumbled, coming out of their bedroom. “You're the one who got up early, so it's your fault anyway.”

 

“I thought my psychiatrist said it wasn't.”

 

Steve rolled his eyes and grabbed the keys off the counter. “Let's go, genius.”

 

“There's the kind of positive reinforcement I like.” Bucky grabbed a water bottle for each of them off the counter and followed him outside. “Some of it, anyway.”

 

“You need so much attention,” Steve grumbled, but he leaned over to give him a quick kiss anyway. “Now c'mon, or we're never going to get there.” It didn't actually take them very long to get to the SHIELD gym they sparred at, but they were planning to meet Clint and Natasha for lunch afterward and Steve wanted to get a full sparring session in before they stopped. Bucky was the only person he didn't have to be careful with when he trained, and the other man liked it himself, so they went down at least once a week.

 

“Must be getting new people in,” Bucky remarked as they entered the gym. He only recognized about half the agents that were in the building as he and Steve crossed the main gym floor to the corner they usually sparred in.

 

“I think they're starting to try to rebuild after everything that happened,” Steve replied. He didn't go into too much detail and Bucky knew the blond still didn't like the fact that SHIELD had been so thoroughly infiltrated by Hydra.

 

“Eyes on me, cranky boy,” the dark-haired soldier teased. Steve rolled his eyes but did pay attention to him. Bucky had long ago decided that Steve was abysmal when it came to hand-to-hand combat without his shield, and had taken it as his personal mission to shape him up. They started sparring and both of them forgot about the other agents training. Neither tended to pull their punches so it would be easy for one of them to get hurt if they stopped paying attention.

 

In a couple hours Steve stepped back and held his hands out. Bucky dropped his guard and let out a breath, grinning. “You're getting better,” he said. “And it's about time.”

 

“I've got the best teacher,” Steve complimented him. He tossed over the spare water bottle and Bucky caught it, twisting the cap off to finish what was left. “Looks like I missed a call from Fury. Be right back, I probably need to answer.”

 

“Have fun getting yelled at.”

 

“Funny,” Steve grumbled. He didn't get into too much trouble these days, but likely as not Fury had just heard about the mess they'd made in Wisconsin last week while taking out a Hydra base. Bucky snickered and gave him a kiss on the cheek before shooing him away. Leaving Bucky to put away their sparring tools, Steve walked out into the lobby of the gym to get more privacy and called Fury back.

 

Once he double-checked the equipment for any damage, Bucky sorted it all away where it was supposed to go and sat down to wait for Steve to get back. He didn't have much interested in checking his own phone, so he watched the other agents sparring. Some of them were obviously experienced and had few things he could critique, and his gaze switched to the newer agents. None of them seemed to particularly know what they were doing, especially one girl that kept getting knocked down. She got back up every time, though, which strongly reminded Bucky of the way Steve had been before the war.

 

“Ready to go?” Steve asked. Bucky started a little, not having noticed him come back, but nodded. Steve held out a hand to pull him to his feet and in a couple minutes they were signing out at the desk. They went back to their apartment to shower before meeting Clint and Natasha for lunch. After that, Steve had a meeting with Fury, and Bucky was left on his own at home. It was hardly the first time that had happened, since Bucky was hardly cleared for active SHIELD duty given his history with Hydra, but rather than stay at home, Bucky decided to go back out. He grabbed a jacket and gloves from his closet to hide his metal arm, grateful that it was the fall and starting to cool down.

 

It didn't take him too long to walk back to the SHIELD gym. The place was almost empty inside but there were half a dozen new agents gathered on the sidewalk. He could hear crying in the alley next to the gym and swerved down it at the last minute. From what he'd seen while waiting for Steve earlier, he had a pretty good idea of who was crying and why.

 

Sure enough, it was the girl from before who had kept getting knocked down. “Hey,” Bucky said casually, glancing at the obvious bruises on her arms. “Looks like you got your ass handed to you in the gym.” The girl glared at him, wiping away a tear with the back of her wrist, but didn't bother trying to deny it. “New agent, I'm guessing. Barnes. James Barnes. I'm like 007 but better.” Clint had introduced him to the black-and-white movies a couple months ago and dared him to introduce himself like that next time he met someone.

 

The girl's eyes had widened at his introduction. “ _The_ James Barnes? As in the-” She stopped and blushed.

 

“Yeah, as in the Winter Soldier, Fist of Hydra, whatever other ridiculous name they called me. Hell if I know. Anyway, I'm not here to freak you out. You need a lot of work if you're going to get into SHIELD and I want to help you out. What's your name?”

 

“Marina Marlin. Why do you want to help me out?”

 

“You kept getting up when that other agent put you on the floor. Guess you remind me of Steve a little, the way he was before the war. Didn't know what he was doing but he wouldn't give up on it.” The girl did look something like Steve, with light brown hair and a slender build.

 

“Hopefully you're not intending on banging me too, because I already have a boyfriend.”

 

Bucky chuckled. “No, I'm looking for a strictly professional relationship. What do you say?”

 

“Sounds good to me.”

 

“Good. I can meet you back here tomorrow at eight p.m. Do you have any sparring equipment or do you just use the stuff in the gym?”

 

“I've got a punching bag at home but that's it.”

 

“We'll use the gym's stuff, then. Don't bother bringing anything and don't be late. Got your phone?” She handed it over and Bucky put his number in. “Call me if you can't make it or if you run into trouble.” He gave the phone back and walked past her to the other end of the alley, waving goodbye as he went. Marina waved back, a little smile on her face.

 

\---

 

Bucky didn't mention his meeting with Marina to Steve when he came back to the apartment later. Steve was out several hours later than Bucky had been, so the dark-haired soldier called for a few pizzas to get delivered rather than making Steve cook anything. They put the newest Mad Max movie on while they ate and put the few leftover slices in the fridge for later. If neither one of them woke up looking for a midnight snack, it would undoubtedly be gone by lunchtime.

 

“What are you doing tomorrow?” Bucky asked as Steve came out of the bathroom after brushing his teeth.

 

“Fury wants me to help him with a new project SHIELD is doing. He didn't say too much about it, just that it involved a better way to track down Hydra, so I told him I would at least take a look.” Steve shrugged as he plugged his phone into its charger and climbed into bed.

 

“Sometimes I think you're angrier at Hydra than I am,” Bucky mentioned.

 

“Well, they did a lot to you, Buck. It's hard to forget.” Steve's fingers brushed across the scarred skin where Bucky's metal arm was embedded into his body.

 

“Means I'm around now, though,” the dark-haired soldier reminded him, leaning into the touch.

 

“Definitely.” Steve tugged him closer, perfectly willing to be used as a pillow. He could feel Bucky's breathing even out a couple minutes later and yawned himself. “You doing anything tomorrow?”

 

“Nothing much.”

 

\---

 

Bucky was at the gym five minutes early the next night. He'd told Steve he was going out for a couple hours, threatened to move in with Clint if Steve tracked him, and reassured his boyfriend that he wasn't getting into anything dangerous. Marina was waiting for him when he arrived, and he nodded to himself at her eagerness. “You don't seem to know much of anything as far as defense goes, so I'm going to start by teaching you how to block a punch the right way. Every time you ended up on the mat it was because your opponent got past your guard. Try to hit me.”

 

It took a little bit of encouragement for Marina to actually throw a punch at him, and when she did, Bucky blocked it easily. “Freeze,” he ordered. “See how I'm blocking my stomach here in case you threw a double punch? And I'm still able to keep the first punch from hitting me.” He held his arm out in front of him and instructed her to put her guard up the way he had. When he tried a double punch on her, she managed to block the first one easily and didn't get hit too hard by the second.

 

“If that happened yesterday I would have been on the floor,” Marina admitted later. “Thanks, Mr. Barnes.”

 

Bucky snorted. “Dear Lord, I haven't heard that name since my dad was alive. Call me Bucky. I'll see you here same time next week.”

 

“Thanks, Bucky,” Marina said. “See you then.”

 

\---

 

Steve pestered Bucky half to death when he got back, but when he didn't get an answer to any of his questions he gave up. Bucky kissed him so he didn't grumble too much about being in the dark, and they curled up on the couch together to watch another movie. Next week, Steve watched him like a hawk through the afternoon, dropping plenty of hints and questions, but Bucky gave him no information. He repeated what he'd said last time – he was going out for a couple hours, he would move in with Clint if Steve tracked him, and he wasn't doing anything dangerous – before kissing Steve goodbye and going to meet Marina.

 

They worked on punching again, and Marina shared how what she'd learned from Bucky had helped her do better in that week's SHIELD training. She said her instructor had seemed impressed and had given her a new partner that was harder to spar with. Bucky suggested they meet every five days instead of once a week if she started having trouble and she agreed.

 

When they met the week after that, Marina was half-covered in bruises and Bucky decided they'd get together more often. Marina said she was getting as much experience fighting as getting knocked onto her ass and Bucky couldn't help a laugh. It sounded so much like something that Steve would say that he could almost think he was back in the '40s pulling the blond out of yet another back alley.

 

A couple weeks after that, Bucky did some preparations in advance and showed up to their practice Tuesday night with two compound bows and some arrows. They spent a couple hours trying to figure things out, neither of them with much experience but having fun all the same. Bucky dropped the equipment off at Clint's apartment on his way home and asked him to keep an eye on it until he asked for it again. Clint tried to pester him to share who he'd been shooting with but Natasha put him in a headlock and dragged him back into the kitchen, yelling a cheerful goodbye to Bucky in Russian.

 

Bucky punched the back of Marina's shoulder as he walked past her from behind, spinning her around. She went with the motion, ducked under the punch he threw, and used his own momentum to tug him toward her, the tip of her training knife retracting into its handle as it pressed against his stomach. “Good,” Bucky encouraged her. They separated and then he stepped forward into her space to push her back, attempting to get her with the knife he held in his own hand. “No, when you block like that it leaves your ribs open.” Bucky tapped his finger against her ribs. “If I had another knife you'd be dead. Do it again, slower. Okay stop there.” He came around behind her and showed her how to use only one arm to block the knife without getting cut, keeping her other hand ready to block any incoming hits. “And again.”

 

Steve watched from across the street, utterly surprised. He'd finally decided that he needed to see what Bucky was up to all the nights he'd been disappearing for the last month and a half, so he'd followed him. He was half-sure that Bucky had known he was there, considering the fact that he was a master spy, but if he'd seen his tail, he hadn't said anything. From the looks of things, this was where Bucky had been fairly consistently, and Steve couldn't help being a little bit jealous. When the two started finishing up, he turned around and started walking back home.

 

He started when his phone rang. “Yeah?” he answered, not looking at who was calling him.

 

“Hey, Steve,” Bucky said. “I need to teach you how to follow people better. What do you think of the other annoying little punk that I've been teaching how to fight?” There was a noise of protest in the background and Bucky chuckled. “She's one of SHIELD's new recruits that fought about as well as you did before the war. Reminded me of you so much I had to help her out. Anyway, we were thinking of going for burgers since she passed her training and she's a full-scale agent now. Kind of a celebration. You wanna come with?”

 

Steve grinned so widely he was sure that Bucky could hear it over the phone. “I'd love to.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you like it, definitivly!
> 
> If you like my writing stuff, feel free to follow me on tumblr. I'm the-star-spangled-bucky.


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